The present invention relates to a semiconductor apparatus and a system.
There is a method for diagnosing an operation failure to improve the reliability of a semiconductor apparatus. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-68865 discloses a method and an apparatus which are capable of performing an automatic diagnosis of a semiconductor device upon power activation of the semiconductor device, which enables diagnosis of a failure or the like in the operation of the semiconductor device due to a deterioration with age.
As a specific diagnosis method, Published Japanese Translation of PCT International Publication for Patent Application, No. 2010-524101 discloses a technique of changing a clock frequency, estimating a maximum operating frequency at which a normal operation can be performed, and measuring the age and lifetime of a system based on the maximum operating frequency.
Similarly, International Patent Publication No. WO 2011/115038 discloses a semiconductor apparatus capable of detecting a deterioration in a circuit to be tested. In this technique, a test control unit causes a clock generator to change a test operation frequency, and a whole control unit calculates a deterioration amount based on the maximum test operation frequency.
Thus, techniques have been studied in which conditions that are stricter than the conditions in which the stable operation is guaranteed are set by changing a clock frequency to be supplied to a semiconductor apparatus and the semiconductor apparatus is diagnosed based on the maximum frequency at which the normal operation can be performed.